Nasdaq tops 5,000 for the first time in 15 years

The Nasdaq Composite Index bolted above 5,000 for the first time in 15 years Monday, recovering nearly all the ground since the massive dot-com crash of 2000. The tech-rich Nasdaq last saw the 5,000 level on March 27, 2000, as it began a steep plunge to below 1,200 two years later as the bubble in technology industry stocks imploded. The index touched 5,000.33 near 1530 GMT, before retreating a bit. Near 1600 GMT, the index was at 4,994.40, up 30.87 points (0.62 percent). The benchmark for the Nasdaq exchange is led by Apple, the country's largest listed company by market value, Google, Microsoft and Facebook. It remained about 1 percent below the alltime closing high of 5,048.62, on March 10, 2000, and the intraday peak of 5,132.52, reach that same day. Monday's gains came on a strong day for US equities following a stream of merger announcements, including the $16.7 billion acquisition of Freescale Semiconductor by NXP Semiconductor, in a deal that links two Nasdaq companies. NXP jumped 16.6 percent, while Freescale rose 11.2 percent. Othe big gainers included technology titans Cisco Systems (+2.0 percent) and Intel (+1.1 percent). Apple, by far the biggest US company by market capitalization with $754 billion, rose 0.6 percent. The surge in Nasdaq has reignited debate on the likehood of a repeat of the tech-sector crash that occurred after the start of the millennium. While some analysts believe equities are at or above fair value, others see more running room for the US market, especially for technology companies. Unlike in 2000, many leading Nasdaq companies are now profitable and many are in lucrative emerging industries, such as mobile technology and social networking.